Northern Rail Fare Evasion

[railuser47]

Can anyone advise of the proportion of cases that come onto the forum who have been able to settle out of court for a s5(3)(a) offence? I have been going through the threads but many of them seem to end without confirming the result. Do you know of many that have progressed to court despite an offer to settle and if so in what circumstances?

 

[W230]

I would think this information isn't known. Many posters seem to disappear when told information they don't like, some don't post back with the outcome of the case anyway.

 

[bb21]

No, we don't. Not everyone comes back to tell us the outcome, however the majority of those who came back to inform us of the outcome were able to settle out of court. Be warned though that the statictics could be highly skewed as I would imagine most people who end up in court would not really want to tell people that.

 

[Stigy]

A lot of TOCs settle administratively for first offences as long as no other offences occurred at the time, and there was no abuse aimed at the staff etc. In all cases the TOC can potentially summons to court if the wish, but it's often deemed more in the public interest if it's a subsequent offence or similar.

 

[yorkie]

Can anyone advise of the proportion of cases that come onto the forum who have been able to settle out of court for a s5(3)(a) offence? I have been going through the threads but many of them seem to end without confirming the result. Do you know of many that have progressed to court despite an offer to settle and if so in what circumstances?

If you are attempting an out of court settlement, then Northern are not the best TOC to be dealing with, sorry to break that news to you. They are far less willing to settle than any other TOC I've heard of. The vast majority of people who I'm aware of who have attempted to settle either told me they were unable to do so or didn't get back to me.

This is in contrast with several other TOCs.

Northern don't always win though!

 

[railuser47]

Thanks for the responses. Does anyone have a phone number for the relevant department at Northern Rail?

 

[142094]

Yes, but I doubt they would be willing to let you know whatever information you are looking for.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I have some small experience of following through from Investigations into alledged railway ticketing offences from some passengers who have sought help on here. However, the proportion of cases that I can comment on arising from this forum, in relation to the hundreds (sometimes thousands) detected each week nation-wide, would not be statistically significant.

Additionally, I must say that if we disregard the sample-bias of this forum and look at the ratio of detected incidents by any particular Operator to those which are dealt with by way of an Out of Court Settlemement and then again to those which proceed to Court, then I will make only 2 observations:
A significantly large proportion do reach the Courts on a regular basis, the vast majority succeeding.
A significantly large proportion do not reach the Courts and are concluded by a Private Settlement.

To provide a meaningful context to my observations, perhaps I can make an additional comment:
A significantly large proprtion of rail passengers continue to travel without paying the due fare.